As India stumbled to control the global narrative, the world witnessed a spectacle not of strategy, but of survival.

In the aftermath of the Pahalgam crisis, India's foreign policy apparatus did not project strength or coherence — it unraveled. The absence of Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar during a critical juncture, paired with the sudden deployment of opposition figure Shashi Tharoor to lead diplomatic efforts abroad, serves more as a public relations exercise than a genuine diplomatic outreach.

For a government that has long prided itself on projecting India as a global thought leader — the self-proclaimed Vishwaguru — the absence of a coherent response at the peak of a crisis is telling.

Meanwhile, India's traditional approach of labelling issues such as Kashmir as strictly "bilateral" — to avoid international mediation — lies in tatters.

While maintaining this stance on paper, India has quietly engaged in a transnational campaign, reaching out to countries like Egypt and Ethiopia as well as the Gulf states, and even using platforms such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation to push its narrative. This contradiction — denying third-party involvement while lobbying third parties — has exposed the brittle foundations of India's diplomatic posture.

At the same time, India has failed to achieve its long-standing goal of diplomatically........

© The Express Tribune